Auto Repair discussion

Lets start a new thread on this so we have it seperate:

Originally posted by Second Chance

It will make the game much more strategic. The players will focus on tactics that do damage without taking it, and they'll have to make the tough decision of when to get out for repairs. Overall, unless it proves to be completely unworkable, I'm in favor of a low repair rate.

Thats what I was thinking too:
In the earlier MP games we had extremely high repair rates (10 secs full repair) and very high damage values on the weapons to compensate for that. That made the game very "twitchy"; You had to get in there and blast away like crazy, kinda like a boxer going for an 'all or nothing' K.O. punch. It didn't matter much if you got into a head on fight cause you knew 10-15 seconds later you are either dead or you're fixed.

Now its really different
In battle with bots I have often turned away, slapped my Sfoils shut to get max speed and high tailed it for the base to get repaired!
LOL: I thought: OMG! Major' you are running from a bot [?] [V]
Kinda humiliating, but I think it's really cool like that.
We'll see what the others say during play testing.

If the idea is to rack up points, then while your sitting around getting fixed everybody else is blowing you away in the scores.

Actually points aren't really the issue: we don't have a pure deathmatch game (currently). They are all team orientated and it is nearly impossible for one person alone to make enough points to win.
(Of course you do find "ball hogs" in any game)
The games are also more class based (ship roll) and therefore strategicly orientated too.

This does bring up an issue though:
Currently repair is instantianous once you're docked. Thats a kinda weak point but I'm not sure we can fix it easily.

Like you said above the point is you have to make the decision to break combat or not, maybe even ask someone else to cover you, and run for repairs. Going in for repairs takes up enough time as it is. I dunno if a time delayed repair function is necessary. It would be more realistic but, it's not necessarily fun to sit there half a minute just 'cause someone wanted the game to be real realistic.

To do it, we would need a while loop with a timer, inside a switch case. If someone blew up the station while you're docked to it the game might go into an infinate loop and just be stuck. I dunno for sure if it's worth it to take the risk for what it gives us... *points up*
In forward attack situations you'll probably use the CUV for support and it can only fix you up by 60% of your max capacity anyhow.

Regardless of my rather obvious opinion, other opinions are welcomed!

Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Kinda humiliating, but I think it's really cool like that.

Absolutely! What's the point of playing if you can't be defeated?

About instant repair when docked: So what? Who cares if it's instant as long as there are consequences, and you have to make an effort to travel all the way back to the mommy ship to get it? The key is simply to make field repair more desirable, and mommy ship repair more difficult to get.

You could make the enemy carriers farther apart, so travel time becomes a factor (your side could lose without your support). Or you could make the repair ship protect the docked (or whatever) fighters by extending its shields over it. Although for that, it probably does need to be docked. I'm sure we can be creative and come up with good ways to balance it out.

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After playing the mod a little while I think the weapon damage is way to high. You should be able to last for a good several minutes before being destroyed. And at the current damage rate, you'd be dead way before you ever got out of the battle to go get repaired.

These are just my feelings, of course. It could be that I just suck at playing. [xx(]

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You may be right. Tarcoon and I haven't got into weapons balancing and tweaking yet and there is still lots to do there.

Oddly, in the few battles we've had together it seems to take quite a while to destroy the other human player, while on the other hand bots seem to have an advantage. Although they have the same weapons, they seem to hit me a lot better than I can them.

I'm not getting shot down too much but find it rather tedious to kill a bot because it takes quite a while, maybe even 8 to 10 minutes to kill a TieFighter on a bad day. [V]
The Tie/Int is a bit easier, but I usually loose against a bot in an A-Wing if I'm not very patient and very careful.

From that perspective it could even be that the weapons are too weak (for a human player). Maybe we should give the bots weaker weapons?
(I think bots have an advantage because they are server entities and at the source of the weapon simulation that really counts.)

Whatever you do, don't get into a head on "duke it out" fight with a bot. You'll loose 98.5% of the time. You have to outmanouver them to win.

I hope Tarcoon will speak up here soon and convey his observations too!




Iwar2 Multiplayer Fan Site

Hi Gents,

nice to meet you here in this hidden forum. Well hidden, as long as you don't logon to the site:))
I visit this board at least 4 to 5 times a week, but do more reading than writing.
Logon is minor necessary for me because a short answer is well done without it. And - cookies are disabled for standard.

Now one more thing to mention: thanks for beeing invited to this forum. I did appreciate the warm welcome a few months ago and I like the kind atmosphere on this board. Thanks to SoupDragon for the board and all you cool guys for the great mods I did enjoy playing EoC. I feel a bit like a candle between the flood lights.

Observations? MT is a great modder but a lousy pilot - it takes him 8 to 10 minutes to kill a TieFighter:))

Ok - I think all these little Fighters are hard to hit. First they seem to be much too small. In EoC you're able to see your opponent (even in a small fighter) within a certain distance. A TIE or an A-wing seem to hide behind the target symbol of your HUD no matter how far they are away.

The weapons are not very effective as long as the foes stay in motion (bots and human). Hits seem to be lucky shots. I do agree with MT concerning the A-wing. This ship seems to be unbeatable, much too fast and manouverable. This should be changed or the weaponary should be weakened.

What do you think about a kind of point system for fighters?
At least five categories: speed, hull, shields, manouverability and weapons.
Every fighter may get 15 points all over and in every category up to five points.

Fighter 1 for example is slow (speed 2 points) but has a resistant hull (hull 4 points), maybe small shields (shields 1 point) and fair manouverable (3 points) - there are five points left for a big punch weapon.
(maybe NO shields and 5 Points for the hull?)

Fighter 2 is fast (4 p), low hull (2 p), fair shields (3 p), good manouverability (4 p) but only light weapons (2 p)

Guess you've got what I mean. Autorepair should be slow for all.
This would serve a ship for all kinds of flight- and fightstyle.
Rebels with shields and Imps with resistant hull?





There is no safe distance

Hmm, interesting idea about the points for ships. I like it, but I also think it would serve better as a starting point, rather than a solution. We must be able to allow for genuinely superior ships occasionally. But it's an excellent place to start. It standardizes performance characteristics, and gives us a base to work from.

One thing I've found to be not-very-fun in EoC is the extreme speeds. I know it's more realistic, but it's not very fun for me. In fact, I've spent countless hours tweaking a ship and systems performance mod for myself that cuts speed and turning ability for all sims to 1/4 of original (among other things). And replaces all original ship weapons with custom turret versions of the same guns, to simulate a crew. I've found it to be very effective in enjoying even the campaign game a lot more. Now, the huge ships in EoC move and act like huge ships, and you are forced to plan your movements more like a sea-going ship captain.

As for the ship sizes, I've always found even the large ships to be hard to see when moving so fast. And what's sad is that EoC has such beautifully detailed ships, it's a shame to miss them. This, combined with my feelings that the ships and stations did not appear as large as I knew they were, gave me the idea to adjust the internal camera FOV to about 35 - 40 degrees. This provides a much more realistic view of the environment. And with the slower speeds of the ships, allows me those extra few precious seconds to really admire all the beautiful craftsmanship of ships of all sizes. Plus, now when a large ship is moving to intercept you, it looks like someone has thrown a building at you! Which, ironically enough, is actually correct for EoC ships.

Now I'm not proposing that you get as radical as I did, but a slight speed adjustment and a little camera tweaking could go a long way here. It could allow the players to handle the ships more easily, and that equals more fun (and they can spend more time admiring my handiwork ).

Oh yeah, one more thing. Slower ships mean increased travel time back to the base for repairs, another incentive to repair in the field.

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